Trainer Wayne Potts, currently leading the standings at Monmouth Park, has been suspended for 20 days by the New York State Gaming Commission for a claiming violation at Saratoga, reports the Daily Racing Form. The suspension will run from Sept. 30 through Oct. 19.
Mach One was claimed at Saratoga on Aug. 4, by trainer Amira Chichakly for owners Frank Catapano and Nicholas Primpas. On Aug. 7, the horse was transferred to Potts.
According to NYSGC rule 4038.4, “if a horse is claimed it shall not be sold or transferred to anyone wholly or in part, except in a claiming race, for a period of 30 days from the date of the claim.”
Potts alleges that he tried to claim another horse in the same race; in New York, trainers are not allowed to claim more than one horse from the same race. He gave Catapano and Primpas contact information for Chichakly, who contends she was not aware she was claiming the horse to be transferred to Potts.
Potts said that Primpas believed he couldn't run the horse for 30 days, not that he couldn't transfer it for 30 days.
Chichakly was fined $2,000 for her role. Potts was initially given a 30-day suspension as well as a $2,000 fine, but 10 of those days were stayed as he waived his right to a hearing.
Read more at the Daily Racing Form.
Last August, The Maryland Jockey Club (MJC) told Potts to vacate his barn at Laurel Park, where he kept 30 horses, after track officials discovered Potts was program training for embattled colleague Marcus Vitali. Further, according to MJC president and general manager Sal Sinatra, Potts's name is on a list at Charles Town, Parx, and Delaware Park and he is not permitted to run horses at those facilities, either.
Potts had denied those allegations, and is currently stabled in both New York and in New Jersey, the latter at which he is leading the trainer's standings. The trainer is also currently appealing a 15-day suspension for a medication violation in New Jersey.
In 2016, Potts was fined by the stewards at Laurel Park for failing to carry worker's compensation insurance for a seven-month period during which one of his employees fell from a horse and suffered a traumatic brain injury.
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